The Virtual Kite Zoo
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Welcome!

Netmom approved Copernicus Award Surfing the Net with Kids 5 star site At last, the doors of the Virtual Kite Zoo are open! Come in and see my sketches and descriptions of kites of every shape and size, many of them also including historical, anecdotal, allegorical or aeronautical snippets of information. Not only that, but as far as I could, I've also included hotlinks to online photos and constructional plans. And when you think you've seen enough, try out the quiz!

The Zoo contains lots of pictures, but I've worked hard to make them as compact as possible, and so make it quick to browse. But some of the plans and pictures I reference at other sites may be a little slower.

New! Now, you can download the entire Zoo for offline reading! The download version may be more up to date than the web version. (Approx 300k zip file - download time should be under 2 minutes with a 28.8k modem. Unzip to a convenient folder on you hard drive, then point your browser at it.)
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Introduction

There are many ways in which you could classify kites, two obvious ones being according to structure, and according to historical derivation. If you're interested in kite history, look at Pelham, probably the best all round book on kites with a good historical section, or Hart, which is the definitive work on kite history. Many of the historical details in the Zoo have been taken from these books.

You could regard David Pelhams's book as a Natural History Museum of kites. But my intention here is to offer you a Kite Zoo. Like an animal zoo, it has live exhibits (virtually) in the form of pictures of examples of each specimen, as well as plans for building them (where available) - and you wouldn't get that in an animal zoo!

Just as the labels in an animal zoo may say "This animal is dangerous", or "This animal is a cross between a yak and a cow", so my Zoo tries to give useful, relational, anecdotal or historical information on the exhibits.

The number of exhibits currently stands at around 50. Maybe your favourite kite isn't here but most of its cousins probably will be. Like nature, kites exhibit a fairly small number of basic designs, each of which is subject to almost endless variations. My aim is to be comprehensive but not necesarily exhaustive.
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Where to start?

New to kites?

If you're new to kites, you might first like to review the terminology or construction methods and materials. If you never got your scout or guides knots badge, you can still make and fly kites! The knots page tells you all you need to know. And if you want to follow up the subject in your local library, you can look at the bibliography.

What to do with them?

Kites aren't simply toys (though they make good ones), but have various uses. Come and see!

For teachers and youth leaders

If you're a teacher or a leader of any kind of childrens' group, come and look at Kites in the Classroom.

Just looking ...

You can take a Guided Tour of the Virtual Kite Zoo. If you don't have time to complete it, bookmark the page you get to and come back later. Just follow the signs: Guided Tour

If you're looking for a particular kite, you can consult the Catalogue.

Most of the photographs and plans referenced from the Zoo are at other sites. But here are the plans and pics in my own archive.

Floorplan

If you just want to wander round at will, here's a floor plan:

So you think you know it all?

At the end of the end of the Guided Tour is a Quiz, brought to life with JavaScript. All the answers are in the Zoo, but if you insist you can try it now. See if you can get the Bonus Question!
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Further Information

If you can't find what you want to know in the Zoo, the usenet newsgroup rec.kites is a mine of information. Browse it yourself. If you submit a well thought out question of your own, you will almost invariably get some good quality feed back.

But the chances are, someone else has already asked the same thing. Use the following form to search DejaNews for keywords.

Search rec.kites for:


(Simply type your keywords, or connect them with & (=AND), | (=OR), &! (=AND NOT); "quote" phrases; use * as wildcard. Further help.
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Feedback

If you've enjoyed the Zoo, write and tell me that I haven't wasted my time. Or write if you would like to tell me of any errors or omissions, or if you can give me any hotlinks to plans or pictures. I'm keen to include links to plans for as many different types of kite as possible, and to include pictures from a wide range of sources. Mail me!

Meet the Curator himself! - who am I? - where do I live? - how did I get into kites? - how many have I got?? Find the answers to some of these questions, and others you haven't even thought of!
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And Finally ...

If you parachuted in from a web search engine or came on a personal recommendation, also visit Peter Peters' Kite Site, or Andrew Beattie's Kite Flyer's Site, which between them contain the most comprehensive source of kite-related material on the net. If all that is a bit too heavyweight for you, Gilles Lehoux's Definitive Kite Site will tell you all you need to know to bluff your way in kites!
Copyright © 1999 Philip Le Riche
You are welcome to make whatever use of the Virtual Kite Zoo you like, except making money out of it. (But if that's what you had in mind, let's talk about it!) Any use of The Virtual Kite Zoo outside the above terms requires prior written permission from the author.

The following copyrights are known to apply to referenced material:


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